What are your favourite fragrances, and why?

• Lalique Encre Noire. Smells like an inkwell or maybe moss deep in a forest. Love it for rainy days.
• Dior Fahrenheit. Smells like, uh, gasoline and cucumber? I promise it's really good.
• Tom Ford Noir Extreme. Sort of at a loss for how to describe it. Smells sweet but in a really strange ephemeral way. My goat

Anything Petrichor. Don't currently have a fave supplier though.

Too many to name, but to narrow down a few....Musc ravager as far as if I had to only have one, but it's a particular vibe. Big vanilla big musk. Sultan Vetiver for fresh, hotter weather. Probably Eau Sauvage(NOT Sauvage) for one that's inoffensive, could wear in an office setting. I got into fragrance maybe 15+ years ago, usual designer ones that I still love: le male, Kouros, egoiste. My brother and friend also love fragrances so over the years we've progressed through weird ones, niche fragrances, etc. getting a lot of samples and collectively going through them is a real pleasure, and I'd highly recommend doing that with a group of friends even if they aren't into perfume. Sometimes you'll find introducing people to fragrances will get them hooked or you'll find things you smell as abhorrent they'll love. Among our group, Amouage King Blue smells literally like poop. It smells like poop, I've changed a lot of diapers and King Blue smells like it but some people swear it's the best one Amouage makes. What are ones you go to?

Oh, this is a question I am excited to talk about!

1. Musk Khabib from Bortnikoff - beautiful perfume. Sillage is medium or intimate on my skin. I love Coumarin with Ylang-Ylang, and the musk used is incredible. I have an older bottle, so new formulations may differ.
2. Casablanca from Diane St. Claire - incredible, hyrax base. Everything I could say has been said better by Will from Barrister and Mann here. As much as I love this I find myself more frequently wearing Song of Aubrac layered with a sandalwood fragrance after dry down.
3. Embers 2021 from TRNP - the best sandalwood I have ever smelled. One of the last fragrances before this perfumer’s break from ingredients like sandalwood and oud due to concerns over sustainable harvesting.

Honorable mentions: Timbre and AEOOJ from Chris Rusak, 1888 from Casamorati, Minneapolis 5.3 from Berceuse, Shalimar from Guerlain.

I think you and I have talked about this before, but the two I use for daily wear are Hermes Eau de Merveilles Bleue and Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Herba Fresca. I do prefer the blue one (I love aquatics and this one reminds me of, like, a winter Seattle ferry ride: cold water, breeze, bare rock) and find myself wearing it more but unfortunately I think I smell better in greens and the Herba Fresca has these really interesting spicy and minty notes on me. I'm not an expert though!

How I got into fragrance is kind of stupid. A lesbian oriented gacha I play, Reverse 1999, has canonical fragrance notes for all the characters, and I thought, "I should have a fragrance, too! Which of these women do I want to smell like?" Well, it turns out, they released perfumes based on the characters as merch. The one based on the main character, Vertin, was an objectively shallow and uninteresting androgynous aquatic fragrance but I bought it and liked it and it was a start.

Edit: I should mention that the Eau de Merveilles is for some reason a complete compliment magnet. I almost literally can't go out wearing it without someone saying, "wow, you smell really good, what perfume are you wearing?"

Philosykos by Diptyque is still my all-time favorite, I love this creamy green fig scent. Fig's not a common fragrance note, and other fig scents I've tried just don't come close.

Sayu by Ahres is a new favorite, found this Japanese brand a few years ago while traveling. Now I pick up a a bottle every time I'm in Tokyo or Osaka. It's a very feminine, sophisticated, elegantly blended floral-soapy scent.

I'm not a cologne person, but my daughter bought me this $5 bottle of cologne from TJMaxx for fathers day and it turned out I really liked it. The bottle describes its contents as bergamot, sage, and tonka bean. One of the reasons I don't typically like cologne is that, if the scent doesn't disappear after a few hours, it seems to sour or change into something I find revolting. The bergamot, sage, and tonka bean cologne smelled good even 12+ hours after spraying it.

The problem I'm stuck with now is that I'm a cheapskate and I can't find the same cologne anywhere for less than $45. (Laugh, laugh at me, you spendthrifts! I know I'm cheap.) I've been on the lookout for either another TJMaxx sale or an alternative brand that has the same characteristics as the bottle I've just finished.